If you answered "ugly" I'll count that as a correct answer. This one is a bit on the hideous side. Black & White, kinda grimy, water stains on both sides, a little mouse nibble at the bottom corner I didn't even notice until I scanned the thing... what is this monstrosity??It's part of the most beautiful set ever made.
Well, the set that some people think is the greatest ever, anyway. This is a 1953 Bowman card. But wait! Ain't they asposed ta be purdy? And in color? The first full color photo set ever? Well yeah, 160 of the '53 Bowman cards are in spectacular full color. Unfortunately, printing up those full color cards was so expensive that Bowman ended up printing up 64 more in black & white to save money.
Now the photo of Lew here (yes, he bamboozled Bowman into putting the wrong name on the card, just like he did to Topps) is actually just as good as the color photos in the set, it just... doesn't have any color. Ok, so it's cropped a little tight on this card, and there's some empty space up top for no reason, but it's still an interesting photo. The black & white series cards are scarcer than the color series, but there's not quite the star power. Mantle, Musial, Duke, Yogi, Campy, Feller, Whitey, Spahn and Mathews are all in color. The monochrome set got Casey Stengel, Johnny Mize, Hoyt Wilhelm and not much else. Not to say that Lew here is chopped liver. The man almost single handedly beat the Yankees in the '57 series. You'd think that for such a wonderful feat, the kid you pulled this card would have kept it away from water and mice! Ah well, there's one more empty pocket filled in my Braves binder at least.
2 comments:
Sweet card. I have about a dozen of the color cards but no black and whites. Good stuff!
The framing is way funky, but I have always been a big fan of Lew-I love the idea that a player could lie about his name back then, too. Sweet find!
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